Green Lemonade

Put the cleaver down. Put it down! Here is an easier, safer and more enjoyable way to open a young coconut.

Young coconuts are a wonderful addition to a healthy diet. Despite fat’s bad reputation, raw fats are one of the essential components of optimum health and longevity. Young coconuts along with other raw fats including avocados, cold-pressed oils, nuts and seeds are important components of brain function, immunity, hormonal balance, and reproductive health. We still have to pay some attention to how much of these delights we are taking in, of course. Just because they are raw, doesn’t mean we can eat unlimited amounts of these foods if we want to feel and look our best. This is a common misperception when it comes to a mostly raw or all raw food diet.

Young coconuts add fun and variety into your diet. They are not hard to find.

If you are looking for a little variety and fun in your diet, a young coconut is a great addition. Young, pre-shaved young coconuts with their hard outer green shells removed can be found in most grocery stores today in the produce section. You will find them with a white exterior wrapped in saran wrap. While I would love to buy these young coconuts organically, they are very expensive (~$10-$15 a coconut) and so this is one instance where I go with the “thick shell” argument and enjoy the non-organic ones in the grocery store for $2-$3 each. If you live near Chinatown in New York, you can often find them for even cheaper.


This is a fun little look at how these young coconuts evolve in appearance from their natural habitat to a store near you.

There is nothing as good as a fresh young coconut water, well maybe only a young coconut milkshake!

The fresh coconut water in a young coconut, and the soft, tender white meat taste amazing combined in a milkshake or simply eaten on their own. Typically in a young coconut there is about 12 ounces of clear, fresh coconut water and just over a ½ cup of white, tender coconut meat.

How to open a young coconut – 6 steps

I picked up this great coconut-opening trick from a health food store just north of Boston, where my sister lives. The great thing about opening a young coconut this way is that you don’t need a cleaver (yikes!) and it keeps the fibrous shell of the coconut from invading your delicious coconut water.

1. Prepare. Locate a hammer, a medium sized nail and a chef’s knife. Unwrap the saran wrap from the young coconut.







2. Puncture the coconut with 2 small holes. Sit the coconut on its flat bottom and using your hammer and nail make two small holes in the top slanted part of the coconut. Place the holes across from each other.







3. Drain. Place the coconut with the 2 holes you have now added upside down in your blender. Let all the water drain. You will get about 12 ounces of fresh coconut water. If you thought the coconut water you buy in the store is good, wait until you try this.










4. Place coconut on its side. When the fresh coconut water has fully drained, remove the coconut from its perch atop the mouth of the blender. Place the coconut on a stable surface. Have your chef’s knife and hammer nearby.







5. Gently tap off the “coconut hat”. With the coconut on its side, place your chef’s knife at the base of the “coconut hat” and parallel to the flat side of the coconut. Gently tap on the meaty part of the blade on the chef’s knife. Work the blade of the knife with the hammer through the coconut. When you are close to the other side of the coconut with a few gentle taps on the knife, stop. Remove the knife and gently pull back the little “hat.”







6. Prepare to eat. At this point, the tender young meat of the coconut is ready to be removed. With a spoon, gently scrape the sides of the coconut and the top. Some meat will be a little firmer to remove than others. Do your best not to scrape too hard so that you don’t take half of the fibrous side of the coconut with you. Sometimes it’s unavoidable. When that happens just trim the meat from this roughage prior to using it.